The worst kept secret became officially official on Tuesday when Georgia coach Kirby Smart said that, yes, Mecole Hardman, is now a full-time wide receiver.

“I think that’s safe to say,” Smart said. “You guys have finally cracked the egg. Mecole worked over there about 95 percent of the spring. He did a lot of work there. He did double as a DB on some occasions when we were very down on DBs in the spring.”

They have plans for him, too.

“We think Mecole’s biggest attributes will help us in the offensive slot slash return game,” Smart said. “He can do a lot of different things. We’ve got to try find a way to get him the ball, but he’s also got to find a way to protect the ball. That’s going to be a growing curve for him carrying the rock very much that Isaaiah (McKenzie) and Reggie (Davis) went through upon my arrival.”

Oh, great. He’s already lost a year before even getting started on that growing curve. Still, this sounds better than being Tripped.

Sankey expects a uniform drug policy to make its way onto the agenda eventually.

As for when? That’s something he can’t predict.

“Part of my expectation is that will at some point be a conversation because we’ve had so much turnover in personnel that it’s now asked with more frequency in meetings,” said Sankey, who noted twice that changing personnel at universities could lead to that discussion. “And from a staff standpoint, we’re prepared for that conversation. As I mentioned, having a student athlete conduct working group, that may be an agenda item we assign there. I wouldn’t predict when other than it will be an agenda item at some point is my anticipation.”

It sounds to me like Georgia will keep pushing, in other words. And from its perspective, why not? If you take the harshest approach in the SEC, bringing every other school to your stance levels the playing field. Which is exactly why it’s doomed. Don’t take my word for that.

When it comes to drug testing policies and penalties, SEC institutions want their autonomy. This is not the NFL.

As the SEC ponders the idea to come out of an NCAA working group that would make it easier for transfers to go to the school of their choice, you can almost hear Kirby Smart’s teeth grinding over the possibility.

Man, this may be the longest exposition on why college athletes shouldn’t be paid I’ve ever read. For all its faux anguish, it boils down to little more than Colin Cowherd’s much more succinct“Listen, 90 percent of these college guys are gonna spend it on tats, weed, kicks, Xbox’s, beer and swag.”

Again, if you’re a regular college student (or, for that matter, a former professional athlete with a bank account playing a different sport as an amateur in college), there’s nothing stopping you from doing the same thing with your hard-earned money. And if the problem is, in the author’s words, that, “… if a player receives significant compensation for an ad campaign, he wouldn’t have much incentive to try very hard in the classroom”, isn’t that a reason not to let any college student make good money while attending school?

If you buy into this bullshit, either no college kid should be entrusted with the use of their own funds, or there’s a problem specific to student-athletes. If it’s the latter, isn’t that a good reason not to give special consideration to admitting them into school in the first place?

There’s something sketchy about this concern and I don’t have a hard time putting my finger on what that is. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about that.

While Smart described his first season as Georgia’s coach as “disappointing,” the first paragraph of Smart’s bio states that “after one season, he has not disappointed.”

… but that’s only because you lack perspective.

Sure, from Smart’s standpoint — and the fans’, for that matter — 2016 was not all it should have been on the field. But from Butts-Mehre’s point of view, it was a huge year, largely because of what they were able to leverage from Smart’s honeymoon: passage of a Open Records law that keeps a lid on information, #93K, increased ticket charges, the continuing health of the reserve fund while embarking on large scale capital projects, targeted fund raising opportunities, etc.

Quote Of The Day

“Give them credit, but I think everybody can see that Georgia’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. I’m very proud of this team and this university, and we’re not going anywhere.’ — Kirby Smart, AJ-C, 1/9/18